Tim Abbott

Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Story

Brilliant!

h/t: Phil Cooke

ClickToFlash

ClickToFlash is a small plug-in for the Safari browser on the Mac that blocks Flash animations from loading. This not only speeds up web page loading times but also cuts down the work your computer processor and graphics chip have to do running Flash.

You can still view Flash whenever you want just by clicking on the graphic that displays in its place. You can also choose to enable Flash for whole web sites if required.

YouTube clips will play in H.264 video format rather than Flash which is not only better quality but requires less processor power. You can still switch to watching YouTube clips in Flash if you want.

I've installed ClickToFlash and so far it works perfectly. My MB Pro doesn't heat up like it used to when viewing multiple Flash enabled web pages and I can now ignore all sorts of annoying ads. Neat!

Flashblock performs a similar function for Firefox on all platforms.

Google Street View snappers snapped on Street View

Some bold and fast acting photographic types have been sacrificing themselves before the all pervading Google Street View camera cars and have thereby achieved Street View immortality.

The Register has all the details.

Street View snappers of the nation, we salute you.

Kutiman - YouTube remixer extraordinaire

Kutiman is an Israeli musician and producer who has taken the art of the mash-up to a whole new level with a series of music videos edited entirely from YouTube clips of amateur musicians doing their thing. This is my favourite:

There's more here

MacBook sleuth

When a woman in Santa Cruz had her Macbook stolen she enlisted the help of a friend who had a .mac account and a user account on her computer. Using Mac OS X Leopard’s “Back to My Mac” screen sharing feature he has been able to track and identify the thief including taking photos of him using the built in Photo Booth camera. The Police are now on the trail of the thief with a warrant...

You can follow the story on this blog

Links for today - 080312

Here are some links to useful stuff and fun stuff...

First the fun stuff;

Stuff White People Like  Wryly observed commentary on our middle class western lifestyle.
[Thanks Joel]

Useful stuff;

Free Mac Software does exactly what it says. Simon Elliott is a teacher in Cornwall and the brains behind thefreemac

And dafont is a site with nearly 8000 free or nearly free fonts all neatly organised and regularly updated.
[Thanks Tom]

Software advice to schools

Some IT related bits and pieces today.

Thanks to an article on the Becta web site (see below) I discovered a link to OpenDisc, a site that collates links to (and distributes on CD) high quality open source software for Windows users (some apps are also available in OSX and Linux).

Becta, the UK education technology agency, published a report on Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 at the beginning of January looking at document interoperability and analysing the suitability of both software packages for adoption by schools and colleges. It's main recommendations are:

• avoid installing Vista for interoperability reasons, except where they are doing new institution wide installations.
• there should be no widespread deployment of Office 2007 until schools and colleges are sure that they have in place mechanisms to deal with interoperability and potential digital divide issues over Microsoft's new .docx (OOXML) format and that where there are users of Office 2007 they should not save in the .docx format. It also highlights Microsoft's limited implementation of the ODF document standard.
• pupils, parents and teachers should be made aware of 'free to use' products currently available and the ICT industry should do more to highlight these products.

Becta also has a complaint pending with the Office of Fair Trading over Microsoft's educational licensing programme.

Information

The information we can access, and the way we access it, has changed out of all recognition in the last 10 years. This amazingly creative video tells that story.

Bitmap to vector conversion

Thanks to EasyRew for this link to Vector Magic, an online tool for converting images from bitmap to vector. If you've ever struggled with undersized fuzzy bitmaps you'll appreciate this big-time.

FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer, the online photo editing application has just added some more amazing features. There are demos on the website which show you the sort of things that are possible.
This may not be one for the photography purists, but there are some neat tricks in there!